Would blood mgmt improvements have been made without firm stand of JW's (page 2)

The AIDS crisis really got the ball rolling. Fear and panic made MANY MORE than JW's not want a transfusion. Of course they were a part of it but it wasn't those wackos that brought about such intense alterante blood research. Remember, they are a puny little group that thinks the world revolves around them.

JWdaughter

I think (along with Wasanelderonce) that AIDS is what did it. Hepatitis is scary enough for people to think 2x. But if it is death or an infitesimal chance of gettng a blood borne illness, I will take my chances with whatever gives me the better chance.

L3G

I know a board certified hematologist who once surprised me when he said that he'd never take a blood transfusion (we were just having a general conversation about surgery). Naturally, I asked him why. He surprised me more by telling me how unsafe they are! He didn't just mean HIV. He knows nothing about my JW background either.

BG, thx for the share.

steve2

LX3, clearly elective decisions to accept transfusions are different from emergency decisions - as in sudden, massive blood loss as occurs in car crashes. Blood transfusions remain an emergency treatment in these sorts of scenarios. Ther eis no alternative - which is why absence of blood transfusions at these times spells certain death.

Finkelstein

Would blood mgmt improvements have been made without firm stand of JW's

Not necessarily so because new surgical techniques were created to enhanced the recovery time of the surgery

itself, there may have been some minor influence to progress in that direction from the problems

associated with BTs, but to say the JWS with their no blood policy/doctrine instigated this to happen,

that really would be a untruthful over statement.

snare&racket

This topic need to be treated very delicately.

I would argue that soldiers on the front line with no access to blood and JW's have both contributed to the drive of reduced blood use. BUT this is misunderstood as JW's bringing new clinical policies through the idea blood is not good for you.

This is the awful truth, we can't and don't take life threatening experementation lightly. We simply don't do it. When we give blood it is because we really think a patient needs it. As with every intervention , there are risks. There are risks to giving oxygen!

The awful truth is...

The JW's have provided a large sample size of patients, that over time have contributed to showing where prophylactic blood, i.e. giving blood before a procedure as a precaution of blood loss... is not as necessary as we once assumed. By providing lives to experiment with, the JW's have lived and died on operating theatre tables all over the world for nearly 100 years now. They have by their lives, highlighted procedures where blood is not indicated.

BUT..........Blood does save lives, all day in hospitals globally. To skew that message is very, very dishonest.

There is NO alternative for blood in 2014, no other means to carry oxygen to the cells of a human being. If someone has lost the blood volume necessary to sustain life, it has to be replaced. If a human has lost the ability to clot, if a human has lost their platelets....they need to be replaced.

But the procedures with risk of bleeding, such as cardiac surgery now are improved in that they don't routinely give blood prophylactically. Some studies credit JW's for this. Some credit the amazing doxtors that have found alternate means of surgery, that have proven to be safer...due to the restraints of a JW patient. But let's be clear, the JW's have not advanced medical research, they have offered up new data with their lives. Where did they live, where did they dide....when saying no to blood.

As the article said...

When someones blood results come back and the haemoglobin (hb) is low..... some people may be sat upright, normal as ever. Some may be pale, short of breath and with a racing heart. Some lose a lot of blood and recover, some lose a little and don't.

To say Brother 'X' had a HB level of 'y' and said no to blood and survived...as we heard so many times in assemblies etc...is inappropriate. 9/10 they add "a doctor told hi that had he had blood, he would likely have died." I can not think of ONE reason why blood would kill you, other than these staements being a terrible over simplification of the risks it has as an intervention and the probability of a mistake of a doctor administering the wrong blood type. These are people putting their life on the line. They have every right to. But it is what it is.

Youths that put god first..... are no longer here. They would in all probability be here now had they said yes to blood. But .....yes indeed we have their data to add to the medical sciences, they likely added to what we know....just as the 60yr old Jw Who survived CABG without blood contributed data......but it is not something I would personally celebrate.

Snare

p.s. Such articles trouble me. It has quoted doctors and science without a clear context and it feels troubling. We don't have much data because we dont experiment with people on death's door. We know it saves lives, but we can't research it as much as we would like for obvious reasons.

We also dont have much research on medication and babies, medication and children or medication and pregnant women. All for obvious ressons. We cant test and experiment with these groups! it is illegal to use these people in drug trials. Imagine a religion that had a doctrine of where experimentation on children, babies and pregnant women was mandatory. Would that increase medical knowledge! Yes.....

You get my point....

Bells

I agree snare, such articles trouble me also...

My in-laws know that the blood issue is a big one for me - after receiving 3rd degree burns as a young child, I would be dead without blood. That situation is still the same today - major trauma - need blood.

I have received a whole heap of articles from my in-laws on blood and how there are actually 'better' ways anyway - such as the 'Margo' case that I know that many people here are well aware of (JW Urban Legend). No doubt this article is the next one I will receive.

I'd like to check the stats and data around this article anwyay - the bit where people without blood recover faster and better for example... You can't really truly know this, unless you can have a parallel universe and have the same person in each one, giving blood to one and not to the other. It is not possible to know from data alone how serious the situation was of all there people to begin with... One would assume that there were more problems to begin with for the ones that received blood...

:(

konceptual99

oh whoopy doo. The medical profession should be swarming to Brooklyn to kiss the collective GB arse in ever so grateful thanks for helping them advance medical science. Never mind the countless deaths, the endess list of those that did not die but had to go through hell trying to explain the inconsitent, the continuous change and illogical reasoning on fractions, cell savers, procedures, components and the like.

The WTS did not make a so called stand on blood for the benefit of medical health. They did it to stand out, be different and in the process ruined the lives of thousands of people. They should be pilloried, not held up as bastions of free speech and saviours of modern medical science.

jwfacts

Researchers were looking for bloodless alternatives well before the Watchtower banned blood. The part JWs play is offering people that are willing to die as trial subjects for non blood alternatives.